


The sound of silence

by FreeShavocadoo



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, The Expanse (TV), The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey
Genre: AU, F/M, Graphic Violence, Introspection, Joe Miller is a useless sack of shit, Vague Romance, non-typical romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-30 05:23:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21422878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreeShavocadoo/pseuds/FreeShavocadoo
Summary: Josephus Miller was never going to be considered the ideal victor, and left to wash away in his own thoughts for years and years watching tribute after tribute die the way he didn't only solidifies his cynicism.But Julie Mao..... Julie Mao was different.((Hunger Games AU))
Relationships: Julie Mao/Joe Miller
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	The sound of silence

Attachment wasn’t an option.

He’d made the mistake in the earlier years of investing small parts of himself into the tributes. Scrawny kids, usually kids from the Seam that reminded him of himself, all skin and bones. Some had the drive, the innate survival instinct that could point towards a potential victor, at least in the beginning. But district twelve was always going to be at a disadvantage, with a reputation for tributes that died first and a lack of glamour that the Capitol so desired.

It’s funny, now Miller thinks about it, really. Did they lack the ability to win because the Capitol didn’t have an interest in them, combined with the poverty they’d grown up in? Or was it because life had already beaten them down too many times to get up again properly? Districts like 1, 2 and 4 had the natural advantage, that much was obvious. But even districts like 7, 10 and 11 had the benefits of their population beginning their trades early. Manual labour at least resulted in a stronger body, some form of an edge.

Twelve had a scarcity of food and an abundance of coal in the air.

Kids couldn’t even hope for a swift death in the mines until they were eighteen, past the age of reaping. Sure, Miller can’t find a huge advantage from being crammed in boiling conditions with tools that their ancestors had used, coated in rust. But it was one of the many ways, intentionally or not, the Capitol had managed to put twelve at a severe disadvantage. The merchants were looked upon with relative irritation. Though they had more than the average person, it was still much less than many other districts, but naturally, any kind of divide just helped them all avoid where their hatred should be pointed.

Josephus Miller was hardly the ideal victor even by twelve’s shitty standards.

Back then he’d at least not succumbed to frown lines so deep he always looked miserable. He was too tall for his scrawny form, his hair flopped into his eyes and his half smirk, half grimace wasn’t really charming to anybody. It wasn’t exactly hard to go by unnoticed, slipping under the cracks with ease.

_Doors and corners._

His arena had been a derelict city, full of rubble and abandoned buildings, some still standing several floors tall and others with entire walls missing. It’d rained incessantly since the games had commenced, with a grand total of twelve tributes dying in the first day. Bloodbath, indeed. The career tributes hadn’t even noticed him slip by them in the initial bloodbath, dragging a dark backpack and a couple of knives with him.

The first kill was the easiest.

The kid had crept around the building so loudly, naturally Miller knew as he approached the door with his knives in his hands that death was inevitable. The look of pure bewilderment on the kids face barely registered before his blood had splattered on the wall behind him near the door he’d lingered by.

Miller knows he’s meant to feel guilty, maybe feel a little bit upset about it. But he’s rifling through the kid’s bag, already down to the wire in the games, and all he can think about is the fact that it’s fucking ridiculous that he hadn’t gotten a single parachute yet. Exactly how many people had to die for him to get a fucking sponsor?

By the time it’s dwindled down to three people, it seems the attention of the Capitol is finally on Joe Miller. Scrawny, too cautious near doors and corners, Joe Miller. He’d love to be self-righteous and morally uptight enough to refuse the parachutes, ignore the Capitol’s sudden favour of him and their sponsorship. But if he wants to survive, he’ll have to throw away the small handful of morals he had left, after 18 years of starvation and struggle.

Nobody had expected the district ten male to kill the district two male, and even from behind the pile of rubble he’s spectating from, Miller knows that the Capitol will be in uproar, but loving the drama. It’s been years since an outlier has won, after all, and he doesn’t think a single person would’ve bet on him lasting longer than the first day.

He wonders if they regret that decision when his knife sinks into district ten’s male’s back, not waiting for the heroic notion of facing him down and fighting one-on-one.

He’s no victor, he’s a survivor.

He’s glad, in a way, that he’d grown up an orphan. The leverage so many other victors had dangled over their heads was lost on him, allowing him to lock himself up in his nice new house in the victor’s village. Twelve was thankful for the year of food, thankful to perhaps be seen as contenders, but Miller knew better even in the early years of optimism. The odds had never been in anyone’s favour, but in twelve, the odds were entirely against them.

Julie Mao was different, though.

Of all the faces he’d mentored, all of the faces he’d drown out with drink and sleepless nights, hers is the face that haunts him. Strong, beautiful Julie, with her fiery eyes and biting words. Her father had once been mayor of district twelve before he was replaced many years ago, over what type of scandal, Miller isn’t sure, but he’d managed to stay alive for a mere two years after that before dying in his bed of pneumonia, of all things. From moderate wealth to dead in a shack, Julie Mao’s father had left her growing up having to fend for herself.

When Miller had looked into her eyes on reaping day on that stage, he knew he had a victor on his hands.

She was abrasive, she was harsh, and she didn’t like superficial things. Yet, she was intelligent, passionate and had a way of making people like her even in spite of her less charming traits. Her eyes seemed to silently judge Miller, but when he’d started putting in the effort with mentoring her, she was more patient with him.

It was the worst games he’d had to sit through.

The arena had been an endless green field, beautiful cornucopia in the middle. The second the tributes descended from their pedestals, however, enormous hedges began to sprout from the ground, weaving and winding. Some tributes moved so slowly that they end up trapped in the vines of the hedges, being cut down easily by those who clock onto the maze a little faster. Few were lucky enough to reach the cornucopia, not that it matters, as the games are over in two and a half days.

Apparently, the opinion of the Capitol regarding these games was very polarising.

Julie had killed three tributes, in total. The first was a fourteen year old from district three, tangled in the hedge in the first five minutes, right ahead of Julie. He can see the conflict in her eyes, the hesitation in her movements. But she can hear the career pack forming nearby, somehow managing to be nearby enough to stay together regardless of the maze. She manages to hide the sadness in her eyes with a look of determination, slitting the girls throat with a knife in one clean swoop. The second tribute was hours later, as she peered around a sharp corner in the maze, face pressed against the vines.

_Doors and corners._

She’d wrapped her belt around his neck and strangled him to death before he’d even had time to scream.

The third was the female tribute from district one, armed with a curved blade and a bloodthirst that Miller is certain the Capitol is probably both intrigued and disgusted with. The fight is ugly, both battered and bleeding with their weapons cast off into the distance in a matter of seconds. When Julie ends up trapped beneath the girl, Miller nearly claws his own legs off in the heat of the moment. The second Julie sinks her thumbs into district one’s eyes, though, it’s all over.

Barely standing, only one day into her hospital treatment after the games, she hugs him. He has to resist the urge to cry as her strong arms squeeze him, her strength giving Miller the most dangerous weapon of all…..

Hope.

**Author's Note:**

> Very short and barely scratching the surface of the endless potential in a Hunger Games AU for The Expanse, but it was all my brain could manage.  
Feedback always appreciated.


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